Last Comic Standing 2, Episode 2: Narrowing Down the Field

Well, it feels like it was only yesterday we were talking about the premiere episode of LCS2. Oh, wait – that’s because it was yesterday. On a personal note, I would like to get my hands on the NBC programmer that decided two consecutive nights of two-hour episodes was a really keen idea. After staying up until 3 in the morning to finish up the first review, just to swing around and do the same tonight is something I never want to do again. Considering the episodes were edited in such a way that they could have easily been shown in hour blocks over different nights (or even once a week), playing it all together like this and maybe ruining a good thing seems a bit overzealous.

Yet if you look at the ratings for the first night, perhaps NBC does know what it is doing. According to the overnight ratings, the first episode of LCS2 was the highest rated non-sports-related network show of the night. Not bad, considering it was up against the NBA Finals. Ratings rant a 3.9/12 in the first hour and a 4.6/13 in the second, which means that more people started watching as the show continued than turned away. It ended the night with 10.5 million watching, giving it a strong run for the week as well. Hopefully the show can continue that trend as the season progresses.

Before we begin tonight’s review, there is one correction to be made about the review we did yesterday for the premiere: A reader pointed out that Josh Rauitz, the man who auditioned by singing “Take my wife please” over and over again with a television set showing his face, was not using a camera live for the close-ups on the television. Instead it was a video-recording on the television set that he had synchronized to his song. Knowing this doesn’t make the gag any funnier, but then again, “knowing is half the battle,” as G.I. Joe would say.

Okay, that doesn’t really mean anything here, but it sounds good, so we’ll leave it at that. Yo, Joe!

Cough

Tuning into the second episode of LCS2 tonight, we see our favorite wacky goofball, Dick Cheney --

Oh, wait a minute. The show has been delayed due to the ceremonies involved in moving former President Reagan’s coffin to the Rotunda of the Capitol today. Well, that’s understandable, as it is a former president and a rare event that many people would want to witness. This also explains why all the television listings had LCS2 starting at 8:00, yet the television ads stated the show started at 9:00 instead. Of course, it helped that LCS2 had an episode of Scrubs in front of it. At least that avoided the whole awkward situation of “That was the distinguished ceremony dedicated to our fallen former leader who will be missed… now let’s break out the ha-has for LCS2!”

The show begins at 9:00 tonight with Jay still stuck in the middle of Time Square. He tells the viewers at home what had occurred in the first episode, and a quick visual recap of the episode is then shown (and if you need details, you can see our previous article here). Jay reminds viewers that the number of comics has been reduced to 40 and tonight’s show would dwindle that number to 20, then down to 10 in Las Vegas, and eventually one comic will leave the show as the “last comic standing.”

The 40 comics are shown getting on a tour bus that will take them to the hotel they will be staying. Todd Glass immediately heads to the back to get on the microphone and offers Karaoke. Ant gets on the bus with the comment that it “looks like a drag queen threw up in here,” and my heart sinks. I was hoping we would get to see a side of Ant that would demonstrate why he should be on the show, but it seems as if even offstage he can only say things that sound like they came from someone’s thirty-year-old jokebook. Plus, it offers the question, what would a drag queen throw up that would remind one of the interior of a bus? I’m still trying to figure that one out.

On the bus, Todd, Bert Kreischer, Rick Kunkler, and Jimmy Dore start playing a game with the others by repeating the term, “keep it real” in as many ways as they possibly can whenever anyone else speaks up. Ant, who appears nervous, seems to believe they are being serious and wants them to shut up. Tammy Pescatelli, in a brief interview, sees it as just comics doing their usual juvenile “I’m the dominate one” thing and ignores it. Todd, in an interview later, states that the whole point of the “keeping it real” chant was to make it sound so deadly serious that it was obvious they weren’t “keeping it real.” Todd seems amazed that anyone would get upset over the joke, and that someone (*cough* Ant *cough*) wouldn’t understand that it was a joke.

They arrive at the Millennium Broadway and meet up with Jay, who tells them that they will be performing at the Hudson Theater for the Semi-finals and will each be given three minutes to perform. He reminds them that everyone behind-the-scenes really wants to see the comics do well and that the only person that can “screw this up” for each of them when performing is themselves. While it is good advice, some of the comics seem to get a little anxious after hearing it.

With that, the setting changes to the Hudson Theater and the Semi-finals itself. An audience warmly greets Jay and he then goes into the rules of the show. Jay explains that the judging tonight will be done in two parts, with the forty comics split into two groups of twenty. Twenty will come out to perform first and then the judges will pick ten of the first group to go on to the Finals in Las Vegas. After that, the other twenty will perform and ten will be picked from that group.